In an action by the United States against an individual, evidence supporting the defendant’s claim for a credit shall not be admitted unless he first proves that such claim has been disallowed, in whole or in part, by the Government Accountability Office, or that he has, at the time of the trial, obtained possession of vouchers not previously procurable and has been prevented from presenting such claim to the Government Accountability Office by absence from the United States or unavoidable accident.

Word “action” was substituted for “suits”, in view of Rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Section
774 of title
28, U.S.C., 1940 ed., provided that “no claim for a credit shall be admitted, upon trial”, etc. This was changed to “evidence supporting the defendant’s claim for a credit shall not be admitted”, to clarify the meaning of the section. The case of U.S. v. Heard, D.C.Va. 1940, 32 F.Supp. 39, reviews the conflicting decisions on the question whether compliance with the section must be pleaded, and offers persuasive argument that it need not be, and that the section was designed as a rule of evidence. The wording of the remainder of the section also supports this conclusion, as pointed out by Judge Learned Hand in U.S. v. Standard Aircraft Corp., D.C.N.Y. 1926, 16 F.2d 307, followed in the Heard case.